The Poker Beat has needed a new commercial, and Annie Duke’s win in this year’s NBC National Heads-Up Championship at Caesars’ Palace may just do the trick. First a brief run down of today’s matches:

Clubs/Spades Bracket:
Erik Seidel beat Peter Eastgate
Scotty Nguyen beat Jason Mercier

Hearts/Diamonds Bracket:
Dennis Phillips beat Doyle Brunson
Annie Duke beat Jerry Yang

Semifinals:
Erik Seidel beat Scotty Nguyen
Annike Duke beat Dennis Phillips

The finals commenced with Duke (1-5 lifetime before this year’s event) taking on Seidel (0-5 lifetime at the NBCHU) in the best of three final. Duke won the first match, Seidel would tie it up in the second and held the lead in the deciding match, and had Duke all-in while holding the best hand, but his AdKd was no good for Duke’s Qd9d when she made two pair to take the lead. Duke eventually sealed the deal when her pocket nines turned a straight against Seidel’s A-2. Seidel was left with two outs to a chop, but the river was a blank, with the second place winnings of $250,000. Duke picks up $500,000 for the win, her first major win since her 2004 victory in the WSOP Tournament of Champions.

Let the heads-up fun begin. Ali Nejad and Leann Tweeden called out the pairings at Pure in Caesars Palace last night. Here’s a print-outable PDF of the official bracket for the 2010 National Heads-Up Championship, which gets underway today at 1 pm pacific.

Make your own picks via Pokerati’s bracket-tracker to see how our various predictions compare. We’ve got about nine five hours to come up with some sort of contest … a T-shirt is always standard, but I have to admit we’re running low on Pokerati shirts for really-really large men.

Big ups to @JessWelman who kept us posted live on Twitter, and @BarryGreenstein who accidentally sent a private tweet to Phil Ivey for all the public to see. (Gavin Smith plays small-ball; should walk into Ivey’s wheelhouse.)

The matchups are below:

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The Antiscouse writes in seeking some info that I figure should share with all of you, too … because really, what more do Pokeratizens wanna know beyond the latest law, politics, tournament results where should I play and eat when coming to Las Vegas?

Headed your way for the weekend, was hoping at the last second to get your recommendations on 1) tournaments and 2) sushi places to take guest/client. As for tournaments, playing one Friday somewhere during the day, not sure where yet- thoughts? Used to play the Caesars noon $330, didn’t like it last time so thought I’d branch out.

A slightly embellished version of my response to The Antiscouse:

1) Tournaments (Friday day)

Venetian $150 nooner
7,500 starting chips and 30-minute levels. It’s actually a daily event that usually draws 75-or-so runners throughout the week, but on Fridays it has been running closer to 150 players with first-place payouts around $8k.

Since you don’t dig the Caesar’s $330, you might also wanna check out the Bellagio daily events, and if you’re willing to go up against a smaller field with fewer prize payouts, the Hard Rock is in the last few days of their inaugual MegaStacks series — where all the events have been turned into $340s.

For a complete and semi-regularly updated list of Las Vegas daily and weekly tournaments + special events, go here.

2) Sushi

Nobu (at Hard Rock) is my personal favorite. Tasty. Sexy. Fun.

Simon (at Palms Place) is also one of my favorite restaurants in town … though it’s not pure sushi … it’s like Asian fusion with homegrown American steaks and stuff, and it’s away from the casino, which may be more appealing to me than you and your client.

Sushi Roku in Caesar’s Forum Shoppes is great food … but the price-to-portions ratio makes you feel like you’re at more of a French restaurant, and the long walk through a shopping mall to get there may be unappealing to smokers.

The sneaky, ooh, wouldn’t have thought of that place … Koi at Planet Hollywood.

UPDATE: 143 runners at Venetian today — Tagg finished 22nd (18 got paid). Hopefully better results TK for sushi.

Karridy had to leave the Julie final table to go play in his own tourney … just getting underway at Caesar’s is the WSOP Academy’s Tournament of Champions, where K-man is competing for a main event seat.

Follow his self-twittering action here.

UPDATE: Never mind.

Pokerati player Jerry Randack is making a run at the Venetian HORSE final table today.

First off, some props to some Pokerati peeps scoring in the Venetian Deeps Stacks. Today, Team Pokerati player Jerry Randack made it to Day 2 in the $500+50 HORSE. We’re trying to follow him on twitter today, but, you know … some people don’t quite get how that works yet.

Also, big kudos to La Sengphet and Chui Kim from Dallas. La took part in a three-way chop in a $300+30 last week that paid her $24k. Chui followed that up the next day with a 4th place finish for $17k.

The Venetian tournaments are setting record numbers — with field sizes ranging from 500+ players to more than 800 in both $300 and $500 NLHs. Not sure yet on the HORSE event …

Meanwhile, the competing smaller buy-in skill-based tourneys across Las Vegas Blvd. at Caesar’s — the MegaStacks — are seeing very different results. According to one of our spies on the ground, answering the question of how it’s going over there:

Horrible. They canceled their $1k on Sunday because of lack of entrants. A player at Venetian said he went over their first, and they had 9 entries as of 11:30, one of whom was Jerry Yang. I saw Yang sit down in the Venetian tourney as a late entry at about 1:15.

NOTE: Bellagio has also affected the non-WSOP summer tourney landscape, re-upping their nightly tourney buy-in to $1,000.

Air Force One just landed at McCarren airport. The President is headed to Caesar’s Palace, for apparently what is a semi-controversial “junket” fundraiser for Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). We can not, however, confirm the rumor that he is in town to give the WSOP Stimulus tourney a $1 trillion overlay, nor that he plans to satellite into a Venetian Deep Stacks event.

Poker players arriving in town for the WSOP (via delayed flights) are twittering about it.

@Ali_Nejad has a pic of the motorcade.

LOL: Evelyn Ng and Erica Schoenberg just got done with their bikini photo shoot (with Tiffany Michelle) for Knockout magazine, and they’re all pissy about being stuck in traffic on the Strip — presumably unaware of why things are extra-congested on a Tuesday afternoon.

UPDATE: @JeffreyPollack is off to meet @BarackObama right now. Pre-emptive conclusion: good for poker!

UPDATE: President now headed to the Caesar’s Palace poker room. (Seriously.) via @Andy_Bloch.

I tagged along with a buddy to Vegas for a “Free” $300,000 blackjack tournament he played in this past weekend at the Mirage. I stayed out of the pit and played the $2-$5 PLO across the street at the Venetian. He didn’t last long in the free roll to which his host had invited him, busted out of the main event at the Caesars WSOP-C post haste, found his way to the pit and gave me the following souvenir:

There’s quite a heads-up battle going on right now between Justin Bonomo and the Grinder, Michael Mizrachi. Blogger Jon Katkin is on the rail and sends along these iPhone pics of the action:

Most recently: Bonomo’s won a couple monster pots and it could be over soon.

Caesars Palace is hosting its World Series of Poker Circuit Event, which started April 11th and runs through April 29, 2009.  Registration for all events is underway.

The winner of the $5,150 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event on April, 27th will receive 1st Place Prize Money plus entry into the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event.  For more information contact the Caesars Palace Poker Room at 702-785-6566.

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Team Tao of Pokerati hits Caesar’s Palace (and Bellagio) for the first open-field running (second overall) of Dream Team Poker. Have a listen to join Pauly and Dan + Shaniac on our ventures to the registration and jersey-issue cocktail party … a pregame breakfast at Cafe Bellagio (where we declare ourselves the favorites, or at least a Top 10 team) … and then back to Caesar’s for the tournament itself. Along the way we analyze the intricacies of team play, formulate an alliance against TJ Cloutier, negotiate a deal to off Jerry Yang, and show you how big bets on March Madness might be the secret antidote to tilt. Intense strategy talk and hand breakdowns to boot …

Chapter 10: Go Team

Episode 10.1: Gel Time

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Episode 10.2: Shirts vs. Skins

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Episode 10.3: Spam and Eggs

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Episode 10.4: Karma, Villanova, and Thor

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Episode 10.5: Bustout Strategy

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Episode 10.6: Better Luck Next Time

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Pauly is a better faster writer than I am — so it’s always good to have him in town to make me work less. Read his detailed recap of Dream Team Poker weekend here and his less-detailed first impressions here.

Likewise, over at Wicked Chops, they’ve got the Hottie Beat covered … and PokerListings has manhandled the actual tournament action.

Tao of Pokerati Dream Team teammate Shaniac has some great music to listen to while you’re waiting for more.

Meanwhile, Team Aced did their thing to keep Aced.com in the public eye as a potentially legitimate newfangled online poker room with celeb-pro representative Jamie Gold, LV poker-room man Houston Waldie, and Gold-girlfriend Ashley Nataupsky — who is still alive for the individual championship — locking up the team title earlier today.

The vibe on Day 2 (final three tables) was quite distinct from Day 1 (field of 444 playing down to 27). From an informed source on the ground at Caesar’s:

It was great. People really had to watch the standings when making plays. They might have had pot odds on a few calls, but people were laying down hands to hold. It turned into one big last longer prop bet.

Lectures, lab sessions, and lunch are all part of an academic effort to plug your leaks.

Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.

Prof. Seif: “He may think it’s the right move, but Dan stands to lose a stack of 20-dollar bills this big if he keeps playing that way.”

All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!

BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.

Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.

Just because my poker telecasting career the PokerBowl seems to have fizzled under a cloud of overt mishandlement (like the video’s gone and everything), don’t think the concept of organized semi-collusion has been simply tried and dismissed. A different operation — Dream Team Poker — pulled off a successful invitational at the Hard Rock in November, and sure enough, as is always the case with these team poker events … everyone had a great funky-slightly-different-poker time. And the winners (Bluff publisher Eric Morris, editor Matt Parvis, and tournament ringer ZeeJustin) actually got paid — $39k divvied up accordingly.

Dream Team Poker 2 is ready to go — Mar 27-29 at Caesar’s — and this one will be an open event … so any threesome with $1,650 ($500+50 per person) can get in on the action. Because the buy-in is both big enough and low enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this be something of a good-ole-fashioned pro-am event … especially if some of the pros who have been buying into similarly priced Venetian Deep Stacks lately feel they have an edge because they’ve played in a couple of these team tournaments already.

Click here for tourney details and to preregister online.

From $4 to $5 in most rooms and games. Don’t know the exact casino-by-casino and hand-by-hand breakdowns of what the house takes, but the Rio and Caesar’s Palace both recently put the $1 uppage into play earlier this month.

Hevad Khan, the most infamous member of last year’s WSOP final table for example, took down the $10,000 Caesars Palace Classic and the $1,000,000 first place prize earlier this morning. The behavior that earned him his own rule for the 2008 WSOP (will there be a Scotty Nguyen rule in 2009?) has been severely toned down since then. Now that Beyond the Table has returned, does this mean the return of Genghis Khan to call in to congratulate him as well? The rest of the tournament results can be found over at the best tournament database out there: www.thehendonmob.com .

There are 50 poker rooms in Las Vegas, so we thought you might appreciate the assistance of fellow degenerates in narrowing down the possibilities of where to play when you come to town. The votes have been tallied … and four places stood out above the rest … In what may or may not become a recurring tradition around these parts, Pokeratizens say the Best Poker Rooms in Vegas are:

Gold Medal
The Venetian

Great regular tourneys, Deep Stack Extravaganzas, plenty of all-but-the-highest-stakes action, bottled Fiji water, and maybe the escalator that dumps off drunkenly clad party girls coming out of Tao right in front of The V’s poker room make it far and away the favorite of this website’s readers/players/dealers.

official site / TPA

The separate tournament room really is cool, if not the best in town, and the comfortable multi-tiered cash game area never seems short of action appealing to the masses of big little-stakes players. Great freerolls for regular cash players, too.

official site / TPA

Still home to the biggest games in Vegas (in terms of buy-ins), thereby drawing the most pros and the players who want to challenge/sit near them. Everything Bellagio is always luxe, of course, and their regular $500 and $1k tourneys makes the chance to play for baller money an in-town constant.

official site / TPA

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Playing under our little satanic-spade banner … David Pflaster. Some of you may recall … he got his start playing at the Lodge and before you knew it was getting aces tattooed on his forearms, dealing in Dallas, and about a year ago moved to Las Vegas to make it as a low-stakes pro.

He actually seems to be doing it — says he’s just slightly better than breaking even in cash games while hitting some “big” scores in tourneys. More than $20k in the past few months in Caesar’s freerolls, another $10k win online … today he’s playing in the $2,000 NLH event … and with about half the field eliminated just before dinner break, he’s a pretty-big stack with about 18,000 chips (more than double the avg.). Seen here after just having taken out a player who moved all-in on his big blind in a hand where he woke up with pocket kings.

NOTE TO SELF: Satanic Spade … good name for a new death metal band!

UPDATE: According to Pflaster: “Dude, my Aces ran into Jacks.” His opponent was apparently a relative big-stack … so he’s now down to 3600, with blinds at 300/600 … and Pflaster in the big blind on the next hand after dinner break.

Yikes. But at the same time, on the previous break he and I talked about this exact situation, and how he’s learned his way out of it. We’ll see, no?

BTW, mad props to WSOP dealer and Pokeratizen 85Nutz, who spent his day off competing in the $300+30 at Caesar’s yesterday … finished in 7th place, which paid him $8k. Nice!

Should give him plenty to dump into video poker at Ellis Island, because that’s what dealers do after a big score, no?

The Venetian was on to something when they created their Deep Stack Extravaganza series of tournaments. Not so shockingly, the low-stakes masses flocked to these events where you could compete against sizable fields will skill-rewarding starting stacks for hundreds, as opposed to thousands, of dollars.

This year, several casinos with an obvious love for poker tried something similar … but not all have found the same results. In fact, the Venetian itself was apparently struggling to fill their tables earlier this WSOP. A sign that, damn, poker really is waning? Not exactly …

The Caesar’s Palace MegaStack tournament series was giving more chips per dollar-buy-in than the Venetian … and lo and behold they took all their players. So the Venetian has reportedly responded by adding 2,500 more chips to their own Deep Stacks … and lo and behold, the players returned.

Meanwhile, downtown, the two big tournament series (they apparently call a series of tourneys “festivals” in Europe … I like that!) are the Grand Series of Poker at the Golden Nugget, and the Binion’s Poker Classic. Upon a quick spot-check at Binion’s $110 Seniors event yesterday, they seem to be doing fine. They are in their second year of doing this, of course, whereas the Golden Nugget is in their first … and struggling (with or without Montel Williams). Apparently several of their megasatellites have had less than two tables worth of runners, and don’t make … and a far cry from true “sit n gos” … even the single-table satellites are taking upwards of three hours to fill.

I don’t have full numbers on any of these events … but that’s the basic gist on summertime mini-WSOP’s:

Caesar’s — kick-ass according to all reports
Venetian — maybe not as good as before, but still pretty sweet
Binion’s — Binion’s is Binion’s; there’s always good tournament action even if some players steer clear of the high likelihood of an opponent spitting on the floor
Golden Nugget — tiny fields=tiny payouts; better luck next year?

2+2 has a great thread running down the daily Las Vegas tourney schedule all summer long.

Boston Celtics vs. LA Lakers … apparently people are pretty excited about this upcoming NBA finals. And while quite a few poker players have been known to place some sports bets, they’re gonna have to leave the Rio to do so this year…

Harrah’s Chairman and CEO Gary Loveman owns 2.4 percent of the Celtics, and that may or may not be a conflict of interest. The directive reportedly comes straight from David Stern the NBA, and thus no Harrah’s properties will be taking bets on the NBA finals. Talk about a hit for Harrah’s, the Rio, Caesar’s Palace, Paris, Bally’s, Imperial Palace, Flamingo, Bills, Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Harrah’s Reno, Harrah’s Laughlin … perhaps a mini-boon for Bellagio.

The Palms and Silverton also won’t be taking bets on the NBA finals, as their owners also have ownership stakes in other NBA teams. I find this pretty darn interesting … because if the NBA can remove betting on the finals at these casinos, why wouldn’t they want to maintain the same level of “integrity” throughout the regular season?

In the WSOP-Caesar’s main event:

Troy “Darling” Phillips has been sitting on a comfortable stack all day. He’s currently got about 20k in chips, which puts him well above average.

TBR has been playing short-stack poker all day, hardly getting above the starting 10k in chips. With blinds currently 100-200+25, he’s got about 4k in chips.

UPDATE: Pictures taken shortly before the dinner break …

TBR, currently running on less than fumes.

This chair got its aces cracked.

TBR and Darling are in town to play in the $5k WSOP Circuit main event at Caesar’s today. To prepare for it, the two of them and yours truly played in a $500+50 single-table satellite last night (go collusion! Troy’s money!).

With that lineup — and Troy’s playing really well of late, having chopped a satellite earlier in the day — what do you think the odds are that we would all play for nearly an hour-and-a-half and not one of us would finish in the Top 5?

Just to be clear, it was really TBR+vodka playing.

The Final Four is set … and PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Bodog have all been fully eliminated. The upcoming matches:

Phil Ivey vs. Chris Ferguson
Huck Seed vs. Andy Bloch

Holy crap, it looks like it will be some actual hardcore competition amongst four notably accomplished players. Who woulda thunk it?

Also totally shocking commendable is that CardPlayer’s coverage is kicking butt …

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Actually, they’ve been in the air all day … but the hotly contested clubs bracket is now playing, and Pokerati managed to squeeze its way in to the last seat on a very tight but pleasantly elevated press row. So we’re gonna kick it old-school semilive-blog-style, at least for a little while:

5:28 — Mike Matusow is playing Joe Hachem, but talking trash to Gabe Kaplan, a table away … calling him a “washed-up old actor.”

5:30 — My view of Tom Schneider vs. Gavin Smith is blocked by the decorative Doric column cameras. Apparently the set designers aren’t aware that Caesar’s Palace harkens back to more of an Ionic era.

5:33 — Phil Hellmuth is all-in against arguably the weakest opponent in the field … he’s got aces, and the his opponent, Tom Dwan, aka online wunderkind “Durrr” has 10s.

5:36 — Ooh! Hellmuth on the turn! Hellmuth picks up a flush draw that doesn’t get there. Poker is fun!

5:39 — Hellmuth is talking about his brilliant show of weakness to get Durrr to push as they count up his chips … yep, they were even stacked and the greatest heads-up hold’em player in the world is out.

5:41 — They were on the feature table, which now is empty. The way the room is set up, there are four tables with whole cams, and four tables without. The players that will have to move on to get better TV coverage:

Tom Schneider / Gavin Smith
Hooman Nikzad / Greg Raymer
Erik Seidel / Johnathan Little
Kenny Tran / Scott Clements

5:50 — Tom and Gavin are still about even. Antonius has taken a lead on Kaplan. Matusow is all-in against Hachem, with both players on a draw. Phill Hellmuth would like people to know he is supposed to be hanging out with “Andretti” tomorrow. (It’s a Nascar weekend here in Vegas.)

5:53 — Mike is doing his best impression of that Full Tilt commercial where he’s bluffing … and just got sucked out on and crippled by Hachem. Mike is waving an Australian flag.

5:54 — Jamie Gold’s mom, btw, is playing 1/3 in the cash room. I can’t see her chip stacks however. She looks to neither be killing the game nor getting killed.

Damn, with all the poker media showing up, I gotta be wondering how on earth everyone’s fitting in. The entire tournament room at Caesar’s Palace is taken for the NBC Heads-up Poker Championship stage … though probably less than 20 percent of that spacious area is allotted for actual seats and non-gaming tables.

Check it out: I shot this last night, around midnight, after the drawing party at Pure:

Dealers, chip runners, and cocktail waitresses were all talking about what a madhouse it was gonna be today. The action was kinda amped up. Though no one tried to make much of it, Jason Alexander had slipped away after the drawing party to play a little 2/5 NLH.

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Norm Clarke — kinda like the Alan Peppard of Las Vegas, with an eyepatch — has the inside poop on the IRS shakedown of Pure. Does this sound familiar … an industry making ridiculous amounts of money, tons of it going untaxed … so the Feds rough up one of the big ones to get the model of how things really work? What happens from there I’m not so sure. But it’s kinda like Neteller, right? Either that or a mid-level agent got turned away at the door and was pissed! Evidentiary text messages between door guys and unthankful bottle-whales included … can’t wait ’til a little Paris Hilton-sex-and-drugs emerges somewhere in the records.

Meanwhile, this week, Pure will be the site of the “drawing party” for the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship. I wonder what a doorman would say to anyone who slips him a twenty and asks for a receipt.

I used to do business with the underground poker rooms in Dallas. I use the phrase “do business” lightly, as it generally meant these guys were willing to front me a couple hundred bucks whenever I needed a rebuy, which may have just been good poker. Regardless, I decided to leave all those red chips behind to work for PartyPoker — one of the biggest companies in the UK until Uncle Sam threatened to imprison my new bosses if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. Bummer.

So now I have moved to Vegas — follow, the legal money, baby! — and find myself writing about bars, shops, restaurants, nightlife, etc. (among other things – sign up if you already haven’t). Good times, right? Maybe … but PURE — the swanky, Batface-friendly nightclub immediately next door to the Caesar’s Palace poker room — just got raided last night by the IRS.

More from the LV Review-Journal here.

Wha? The Feds also hit the Pure offices … seizing computers, paperwork, and presumably DNA samples. Perhaps coincidentally — or not — all this comes less than 48 hours after Dubai World, the Middle Eastern company that invested $5 billion into MGM/Mirage, reportedly bought a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, the biggest nightclub confecture in the world.

Yeow. This apparent shakedown has to be about way more than drunken chicks from Nebraska pretending they are Paris Hilton and slutting it up for guys who can thumb their noses at $350 bottles of Red Bull-and-vodka. But then again, maybe not.

July 2007: Gavin Smith, partying like a rock star at Pure.

Sure, I’m a lady. (Shut up, Dan.) But I’ve written numerous articles about my anti-ladies-only tournament stance…

When All In Magazine asked if I wanted the assignment to cover the WSOP Ladies Academy in Vegas this past weekend, it required some consideration. I firmly object to women being separated in the poker community, but I noticed that Annie Duke was the primary instructor for the class. Knowing that we shared the same view about ladies-only tournaments, I decided to accept the assignment and investigate. The comped room at Caesars had something little to do with my decision.

Alex Outhred Instructing Students

Glad I did it.

The two-day course was extremely informative, as Annie covered everything from bluffing to betting amounts to detailed strategy for pre-flop and post-flop play. Joe Navarro spent a few hours discussing tells, which even drew some Vegas pros like Tom McEvoy and JJ Liu to sit in. Alex Outhred also helped with the lectures and the live table demonstrations. There were about 75 ladies enrolled in the $1700 course, and everyone seemed glad to have been there.

The lingering question: Why was it for women only?

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It’s that time of year again. The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship is on the horizon, and many players have already confirmed that they’ll pay the $20k to get some camera time compete in the event. Sixty players have been announced, leaving four open seats for qualifiers yet to be announced.

Festivities will begin on February 28th at Pure Nightclub at Caesars in Vegas with the drawing party to determine the match-ups. The following day brings the first matches, and a winner will be determined and get his/her $500k on March 2.

Previous champs Paul Wasicka, Ted Forrest, and Phil Hellmuth will be playing, as well as numerous first-time players like David Singer, Bill Edler, Scott Clements, Jerry Yang, Brian Townsend, Tom Dwan, celebrities Jason Alexander and Brad Garrett, MLB player Orel Hershiser, and the 2007 CardPlayer favorite WSOP Player of the Year Tom Schneider.

Click below for the list of players:

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Remember that shooting at Caesar’s Palace last month, near the elevators? Here’s the video:

They’re still deciding whether or not it was gang-related, but based on this dude’s aim, patience, selective aggression, all that stuff … I’ll take the Centurions over the Crips any day.

By the way, how awesome is YouTube for people who want to leak stuff to the press?

LAS VEGAS–There was a shooting last night at Caesar’s Palace (also known as the Batface Getaway Resort of choice). Apparently two gentlemen got in an argument over a girl, fisticuffs ensued, and one of them went to the parking lot, returned with a gun, and opened fire upon exiting the elevator. Two people were injured, but no word on whether those shot were the ones that inspired the gun-getting. More here.

This follows a shooting at New York, New York nearly a month ago.

Ahh, the Columbine generation is all grown up now. (Even if the Caesar’s Palace shooter was a Gen-Xer, he had to learn the behavior from somewhere.)

Gambling is obviously bad.

LAS VEGAS–Funny how being in Las Vegas has put me so out of touch with all the poker news. I think there are some big tournaments going on, online poker execs in the courts, business deals shaking down, but I’ve got little to report other than poker being played. Still, it’s been kinda interesting to see who you run into at the tables around this town:

The first notable I ran into was OREL HERSHEISER, who apparently just moved here to Las Vegas and sat to my left in a 1/2 NLH game at RED ROCK — fresh after being denied selection into the baseball HALL OF FAME. I tried to play the not-knowing-who-he-is thing — “You lost a vote? Were you running for city council or congress or something?” — but he would end up busting me out when I tried to run a little STOP-N-GO. As I pushed all-in, he asked, “How much money do you have?”

“Um, I’m all-in. About $140 more,” I said, pointing to my stacks.

“No, I mean other money. Because we can make a little side-bet away from the table,” he said, upon showing me THE NUTS.

Red Rock seems to be the OFF-STRIP place to be. On my second post-WSOP outing there, I ran into GARY THOMPSON — World Series of Poker media master and tournament overlord. He was wearing comfortable jeans, loafers, and a button-down shirt while playing 2/5 NLH. With about $800 in front of him, he said he was “down a couple hundred.” But it wouldn’t take long for him to grow his stacks, and a few hours later, he had moved up to the 5/10 game and had what looked to be about $2k.

On that same day, I saw A GUY I BUSTED at the Rio. He was a good player who went with the whole BLACK HOODIE and SUNGLASSES kinda thing, while saying almost nothing and acting with stoic (but angry) CHRIS FERGUSON-like motions. He was playing 1/2 NLH and nursing about $200.

Over at THE VENETIAN in the 2/5 game, I found myself up against a WSOP Dealer — SHAI the ISRAELI GUY. He was sick when I pushed all-in and convinced him to fold his top-pair-top-kicker that would turn into TOP BOAT … only to see the guy who took down the pot from me win with KING-HIGH. A couple hours later I was playing a goofy hand with K-6 offsuit in late position, the flop came K-7-K … he checks, I bet, he raises big, I call. Turn is a 6, he pushes all-in, I call … at which point he shows his POCKET 7s. The table cheers for a FOURTH SEVEN, but it doesn’t come and I send him to the ATM.

One table over, KARINA JETT’S MOTHER was playing — beyond her typical quiet game, she was practically falling asleep at the table (at 3 AM) while nursing about $400. She may not remember this, but she won a $15 PROP BET from me once over a RULES DISPUTE. (My bad … I thought I knew stuff.)

Back at RED ROCK a couple days later, I ran into ABRAHAM, and he really deserves his own post, because he tilted the table unlike anything I had ever seen — and even managed to invoke mockery from a cute young girl who wasn’t playing. Basically imagine the worst personality and poker characteristics of ME, TIM ROGERS and EON MARSHALL all wrapped up into an obnoxious kid who graduated from high school in 2003 and is well aware that he looks like STU UNGAR. Then give him a lot of chips. (His behavior and play was so table-altering it had me interrupting TOM SCHNEIDER’S vacation in ST. THOMAS for some emergency coaching … who advised me well until I played back without paying attention to a guy to my left who had pocket kings.)

I really wanted to KILL THIS KID, or at least make him cry. And so did everyone else — especially the old (presumably) gay man who he busted by calling a $260 raise pre-flop with 2-3 suited only to flop two threes. But he can’t be all that bad, because without provoking from me, he at one point shouted, “THE HAMMER!” with glee. Hey kid, if you are reading this, what I told you at the table after you “bluffed” me with pocket-5s and then taunted (it took me a good five minutes to lay down Ace-high) still applies: “I look forward to seeing you get your education.” Punk-ass. Like seriously, you had at least two of us at the table contemplating how one might go about rolling you in the parking lot.

One of the cool things about Red Rock is that when you need to shake off a bad beat or just step away from a dipshit the table to refocus, you can go BOWL A GAME 24 hours a day — for $3 +$3.50 for shoes. That seems like positive EV.

The picture above is from a day I didn’t actually play poker … but I did walk through the poker room just for funsies after bowling, and whom should I run into but NOLAN DALLA, longtime Dallas poker expat and WSOP media guru, legendary sports handicapper, and Stu Ungar biographer. He was wearing CARGO SHORTS, a frumpled shirt, and seemed pleasantly drinky while playing 5/10 NLH with a couple old friends from POKERSTARS.

“I’m stuck $800 but having a great time!” he screamed upon embracing me with a BEAR HUG. “Isn’t this a great casino!?! Hey everybody, it’s Dan from Pokerati!”

Murmur?

“Oh, right …” Nolan said. “Didn’t mean to blow your cover.”

I also ran into STEVE HALL one night at Red Rock, too. He was playing PENNY VIDEO SLOTS. He had a big hit of some sort of crazy picture combinations that won him about $60.

And then to top it all off, I went to CAESAR’S PALACE with DON JONES (of Rounder Club fame), LEIGH & BRIAN from the Poker Atlas , DOCTOR STEVE, and former Absolute Poker marketing chick JEN TIDWELL to play in their 50-player-max $65 tourney. We all had 10 percent of each other, which proved irrelevant as our top player would bubble.

I was the first to bust out (of the tournament) and would take a seat playing some 2/5. Of all the poker tables in Las Vegas … what are the chances that DAN BALLENGER (aka HONG KONG SUE, father of SON OF SUE) would get seated at my table? It would take more than a full orbit before he realized he was sitting with a fellow BATFACE. He bought in for $500 and cashed out a couple hours later for a little less than that. HKS got most of those chips from me … calling a $100 bluff with second-pair-no-kicker (what was I THINKING!?!) … and then bluffing me out of a $400+ pot on the river, getting me to lay down aces. He mucked at the time, but told me as he left that he pushed all-in for his remaining $135 with an underpair. Wish I hadn’t asked, because it had me semi-tilting for a good 30 minutes or more. I know he was just trying to be nice, but still …

Then JASON from JACKIE’S (in Dallas) and “RICKY ZILEM” showed up. They were just walking through checking out the action. Fancy running into these guys here. Chris/Ricky, said, “I did what nobody does when they first land in Vegas and took a nap.”

Ah, indeed.

Small world. Good times.

After many talks and rumors, Harrah’s finally announced today a $1 Billion expansion of Caesar’s Palace.

According to Harrah’s Release:

Octavius Tower

The heart of the Caesars Palace expansion is the Octavius Tower, located along Flamingo Road on the southeast corner of the Caesars property. The new Octavius Tower will include:

665-room, 23-story hotel tower rising 350 feet;
594 hotel guest rooms (floor plans from 600 square feet);
19 1 1/2-bay suites;
41 two- or three-bay suites;
4 four-bay suites;
3 five-bay suites;
1 six-bay suite; and
3 lavish pool villa suites.
Named for the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, who later changed his name to Augustus, the $375 million Octavius Tower will adjoin and resemble the resort’s Augustus Tower that opened in August 2005 with a new hotel registration lobby and VIP check-in lounges. In addition to convenient access from the hotel lobby and VIP reception areas, Octavius guests also will enjoy panoramic views and direct entry to swimming pools and gardens.

In addition to the new Octavius Tower, the resort’s existing 512-room Forum Tower will undergo a major refurbishment. A regal new front entrance and expanded valet parking will open to expansive new casino interior decor, inviting guests to a remodeled buffet restaurant, redesigned Cypress Street Marketplace casual restaurant and enlarged Race & Sports Book.

Wow, doesn’t this sound exciting? Not sure if they will offer any of the round beds with mirrors on the ceiling that Caesars had in the older days but I’m sure the new rooms will be nice. Perhaps this is to get ready for the WSOP relocation? If so, I may actually miss the Tilted Kilt (even though they don’t serve dessert).

LAS VEGAS–Text to Tom (who has been a gracious sounding board this WSOP on matters of game selection, bankroll management, and getting to know that leavin’ feelin’) late last night:

5:11 am — I am good at poker, bad at drinky blackjack. In for 800, cashed out for 2800.

This came after attending Z-Fest 2007 – a 4th of July barbecue hosted by the Lederer family at Steve Zolotow’s house. It also happened to be the site of the “World Series of Karaoke,” which meant getting to see Joe Reitman dance and scream while exposing/shaking/rubbing his belly, and a shitfaced Mike Matusow parading around like a drunken 7-year-old boy with balloons. Good fun. You gotta love a party that celebrates America’s birthday with great Middle Eastern food and an open bar.

From there, I was supposed to meet up with some Dallas friends to chase a few skirts engage in frotteurism at Carnaval Court. But while waiting around I played a little tiny-stakes outdoor blackjack and somehow managed to lose $497 in less than an hour. Dammit! So I went to make it back playing poker across the street at Caesar’s …

More…

LAS VEGAS–The WSOP Academy hosted their first All Ladies Camp at Caesar’s Palace this past weekend. A sold out crowd of 100 women listened, played and learned from Annie Duke, Karina Jett, funny man Alex Outhred, Joe Navarro and even a surprise visit from the very sexy Jennicide. There was a vast range in players either looking to learn the basics or sharpen their skills and all seemed to benefit from Navarro’s body language seminar. I know I advanced in some areas (although it didn’t seem possible since I’m the 6,432,243,328 smartest person in the world). In fact, immediately following the Academy I entered the ladies WSOP event and focused on my game like a turkey dodging Thanksgiving. Seriously, I used Navarro’s tells to read, Karina’s advice on flirting, Annie’s reminder’s of the math and Alex’s words of wisdom on staying focused.

I would have posted on this yesterday but I was busy cashing in the WSOP thanks to this camp’s wonderful reminders.

Upcoming camps during the World Series will not only include Joe Navarro but also main event winners Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem and WSOP Master Phil Hellmuth with a private tournament for a 10k main event seat, VIP Party at Pure Nightclub and banquet.

The Jennifer Harman Charity Event (photos)was successful and fun. For a $300 donation plus $30 the event raised $125,360 for the warm fury friends. The Las Vegas SPCA is a no-kill shelter which means if you lose your pup and it goes there you may just get him back. Shelters that euthanize will terminate your family pet after five days. It is expensive to house so many animals and it is up to the public to help these organizations keep up there great work. Seeing as how Jennifer Harman appeared in Card Player a few years ago with her puppy love, it comes as no surprise she would be hosting this benefit.

Texas funny man, Robert Williamson III, hosted the live auction encouraging his poker colleagues to spend, spend, and spend. In fact, someone purchased a pair of Robert’s socks for $500. Christie Shulman and Angela Brunson both bought a commissioned portrait of their pets. While Andy Black (another funny man) decided on a more contemporary piece of a rooster’s head. Robert Williamson declared the art work a portrait of his….a part of his body. Andy outbid himself until he donated a respectable amount for the portrait. Yes, that’s correct, he was the only bidder.

It was fun if you like playing in a tournament with a list of players like this:

More…

I’m off to Caesar’s Palace next week to play in Jennifer Harman’s Charity Event to benefit the SPCA (a no-kill shelter). As many of you know, my beloved cat (Miss Kitty) passed away last month and we quickly adopted a new kitten (Socks) from a “kill” shelter. Sadly, when a mother gives birth to kittens and puppies they are all put to sleep together if not adopted within the shelter’s time frame (usually 7 days). Raising funds for a no-kill shelter, such as the Nevada SPCA, allows these organizations to keep the animals alive until adopted.

Since the tournament is the day before the Bellagio WPT main event there will be many pros like Kristy Gazes, Evelyn Ng, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Chip Reese and many more to help raise funds to feed the little guys that need a home.

I’ll have an update on what happened, who was there and how much was raised for our furry four-legged friends.

Looks like Caesar’s Palace is hopping with tournaments. Just this past weekend Brandon Cantu and his partner Alexia Standard won the Caesar’s V-day Couples event. And speaking of partners…Jennifer Harman’s husband, Marco Traniello, scored an entry into the NBC National Heads Up Poker Championship Event to be aired in April. Thanks to Lisa Wheeler at CardPlayer for giving Marco his own identity.

But wait! There’s more. Caesar’s not only has one of the best tournaments on the strip, they now have a ladies night tournament every Tuesday. And if that wasn’t enough to get your boots dusty, the WSOP Circuit Event hits Caesars April 22 – May 2, 2007.

I once heard a rumor that the WSOP would move from The Rio to Caesars. Unfortunately, it was only wishful thinking. But you never know…

Golly, it seems only like yesterday I was sitting in Cafe Roma wishing Caesar’s had a poker room.